


The Beginning

by SolitaryEngel



Series: Trust in Me [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, M/M, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-19 06:33:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17596253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SolitaryEngel/pseuds/SolitaryEngel
Summary: Harry Potter is just four years old when he wanders away from his hostile home and stumbles upon a house which is concerned about the cold and very excited to meet him. Little did he know that the house could — and would — raise him better than his flesh-and-blood family. Even if it couldn't talk back to him or give him hugs.Pre-Hogwarts one-shot necessary-to-read prequel thing, next in series will be multi-chaptered Harry's first year. Soulmates can feel each other's emotions.





	The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Soulmate fiction is fun to read, though I have only read one where soulmates know each other because they feel everything the other is feeling. I was directly inspired by that work, but I can't remember what it was called or who wrote it. I looked and looked but just can't find it. Anyway, thank you to the person who came up with the idea, it wasn't me; I just ran with it.

# Beginning

* * *

* * *

 

    Sometimes, little Harry Potter dreamed of pain. Not physical pain… some have said within his hearing that you can’t feel pain like that in your dreams, and he found that to be true enough. The sensation he felt in his dream was a deep, complex sorrow… a swell of emotions that were always far too complicated and enumerable for such a young lad to pick apart and comprehend.

    But even through all that pain… Harry felt held. Safe. Loved, as if by surprise. Harry missed that last confusing emotion the most when he was awake.

    “Wake up!” A hand pounded on his cupboard door. Harry startled — he always startled. Tears welled up as expected but he didn’t wail anymore — that got him in _double_ trouble. The locks on the outside of the door unlatched and the door cracked open, but his Aunt was already striding away, into the kitchen to cook Dudley and Uncle Vernon’s breakfasts.

    A flutter to the left of his cupboard indicated that the mail had just been delivered, extra early this morning, then a knock came as well. Christmas was coming so maybe it was another present for Dudley.

    “Get out of bed and get the door, lazy boy!” his aunt hissed from the other room, and pans on the stove clattered.

    Harry scurried to the door before another potential knock could get him in trouble, but the carrier had already gone and so he received the package from the doorstep. He set it on the kitchen table at the empty place where Harry thought one day he might be allowed to sit, and caught a smack around his ear.

    “Close the front door! You’re letting the heat out!”

    Harry went to obey, but as he stood at the open door with his horrid aunt behind him and the crisp winter air and freedom in front… he closed the door behind him and went to wander around outside instead.

    He stuck around the yard for a bit, picking up sticks and whacking them against trees and rocks until he found one nice enough that he decided to keep it and not knock it about until it broke apart. He glanced back to the house, but the door was still shut and he thought that maybe his people didn't mind that he was out and about.

    So, he set off down the street.

    He was planning on trying to find the playground — the swings were his favorite, even if he fell off them sometimes — but he might have gotten circled around and _maybe_ he was in the wrong place. He contemplated the poles with the signs… he know they were words and he thought they _might_ tell him the right way to go, or at least where he was, but he didn't know how to read his letters like Dudley did and it was of no help whatsoever.

    He wandered around a bit more and realized that he had come back to the street his Aunt's house was on, but walking down _the complete opposite direction_ from where he'd gone down before! Did he really walk through that many streets? Walking around was so weird sometimes.

    He was feeling rather cold, but he still didn't want to go back inside. Truth be told, he had felt chilled through his oversize cotton PJs from the moment the door had opened, but he thought he might only go home when he thought he might really be hurt by the chill if he didn't.

    As he loitered, he felt a growing feeling… concern. What was he concerned about? Maybe the cold. It _was_ rather cold. Then there came a bit of anger? No it was a little sharper, smaller than the anger that Harry feels. Maybe it was the same feeling as when Dudley got something _he_ couldn't have. Irritation.

    Then the concern returned, but this time Harry could tell it was more targeted, directed at… him? Harry peered around, trying for figure out the source of these weird feeling shifts, because he could tell now even though he _could_ feel these emotions… they weren't his. he didn't know how that could be, but then again, he was a freakish child. He didn't like it, but that's how it was and so he figured that must have something to do with it.

    He felt some amusement come through then, and he wondered if the person or ghost or whatever could feel his brief resigned determination. Was that a funny feeling to others? Or was it reading his thoughts like the ghost in the scary movie that the Dursleys were watching after he had been locked in his cupboard for the night? The volume in the next room had been so loud that he'd been kept awake through the whole thing and then had nightmares for months.

    A stronger flash of concern then, and Harry felt like he was definitely cold enough to go home, but he didn't want to leave yet. There was something underneath the concern… a feeling Harry had only felt in his sleep. A longing… a warmth that drew Harry in like one of those flying insects ever towards the Dursley’s front porch light.

    Then, as if truly reading his mind, a tiny light flickered into being above the dead grass in the yard of a nearby house. It was a house Harry had often heard his Aunt complain about, bought but not lived in — abandoned. Several doors down and across the street it wasn’t very visible from her windows but she complained about the sight of it anyway.

    The light hovered a bit like a lightning bug, but Harry had never seen one so bright a white color and out during the day, as well! Curiosity piqued he walked over to it, hand outstretched to grab it. Amusement, happiness, excitement filtered through him and he didn’t precisely know what _he_ was feeling and what the _other_ was, but he was light inside like he hadn’t been for a long time, so he gave himself over to the happy easily.

    When his hand closed around the light, it disappeared and blinked back into existence a few feet away, nearer to the front door. As he took a few steps nearer that excitement grew, and he felt it _must_ be to meet him. Someone or something was excited to meet him. He couldn’t translate it any other way.

    He bypassed the floating light and went right for the front door, turning the handle as the excitement became unbearable, and went inside — to nothing. No one was there, and the house was entirely free of furniture. He felt his own disappointment, but the feelings… the care there grew stronger. He wasn’t _really_ alone, then was he? He closed the door behind him, mindful of the trouble he got in if he didn’t at his own home.

    Despite the fact that there was no furniture or paintings or even a fire in the empty fireplace, the house was very warm. Harry felt the warmth settle over him like a warm blanket right away, settling over his pajama-clad limbs like one of those dreamed hugs. He even fancied that he could see _steam_ rising up from his clothes, as silly as that was.

    “Hello?” he called tentatively. He’d never spoken to anyone but his people — family, his mind whispered, though they never called themselves such — and the mail carrier before, and got in trouble when people talked to him at the store. He was a little afraid, but he wanted closer to the nice feelings.

    A feeling of… reaching out came to him. He supposed the other person (or ghost, whatever) was saying ‘hello’ back. Harry didn’t know what to do next, but he knew what he’d always wanted someone to do with him.

    “Wanna play?” he asked hopefully. Some shock, confusion, then a sense of uncertainty reached him, and he smiled, because there hadn’t been any ‘no’ in the feelings. “Yeah, I don’t know how to play with a house. Or anyone. I don’t have friends. Will you be my friend?”

    Sadness. Warmth. Assent. The house would be his friend.

    “I like the warm feeling,” Harry said, moving to take a seat on the hard, wood floor. “Will you make more of the warm feeling?”

    Shock, confusion, and then… love. Sent tentatively, unsure. Harry nodded and laid down, curled up around the stick he still clung to, and tried to soak it in. The warmth increased then, sent purposefully, directed just to him — he could tell. Harry cried silently, finally getting what he needed after so long, and the feelings changed. Sorrow accompanied that warm comfort and except for the fact that he wasn’t being physically held, it was just like his dreams.

* * *

 

    Harry visited the friendly house often. Most of the time the house didn’t seem to share its emotions with him, but he kept visiting anyway until he realized the emotions were around most often when his Uncle Vernon was home the whole day, a time that Harry quickly learned was called the ‘weekend.’ Even when the kind emotions weren’t there it was still nice to hide from Dudley, and even though his clothes didn’t steam with warmth unless the house was awake it was still comfortable, especially since a cushy couch showed up and Harry was actually allowed to sit on it.

    The second time he visited there was a large teddy bear and a toy set sitting in the middle of the floor. They were both quite odd… the set was a small round pot and a few cloth toys that when placed inside the pot made different puffs of smoke and smells emerge. When trying out the different combinations, the emotions seemed to egg him on, sending a burst of ‘no’ feelings when he chose the wrong one and an equally strong shot of encouragement when he picked up the right one. Eventually, Harry learned how to pick out many different combinations to get the exact right result for the emotions to send a strong feeling of pride his way. Harry liked that emotion almost as much as love. The teddy bear though… it was perfect. It was warm and it’s arms held Harry back and when the house sent feelings of love and comfort at the same time… it almost felt like a _parent_ was there with him.

    Harry also learned his letters and shapes through talking toys left there on the floor for him on that first Christmas. His first presents. When he started school at six he wasn't too far behind, though he did have to play catch-up with history. Eventually a shelf showed up, and the emotions' reaction made him glow with happiness when he put everything away neatly and carefully.

    He liked the way the emotions changed smoothly as he talked. When the house was awake, he told it everything. Everything he felt about his family, his cousin and their friends, how he felt about never getting to join in on holiday celebrations, and how he wished he could have a bit more to eat at every meal. The next time he visited, there was a fridge, and easy-open food in the formerly empty cupboards. For his birthday there were stringless balloons floating throughout the air, and the very next Christmas there was a tree and a stocking just for him.

    Harry loved the house.

    The house replied to that emotion, and sent double of its own warmth back.


End file.
